


Witcher's Shadow

by Yuurei



Category: Dreaming of Sunshine - Silver Queen, Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: And tell me so I can read it, Don't copy to another site, I dont know if any of the schools take girls for training, I like it, I want to read it not write it, I've read fic that says Cat school takes the occasional girl but for simplicity Kako's a guy, If you like something here, Im still gonna say this is on hiatus despite the update because I have no intention on updating it, No Plot, No seriously I'm not writing this, No seriously someone pls write this crossover so i don't have to, On Hiatus, On hiatus I suppose, Rule 63, Run with it, Seriously its random scenes, Silver Queen's Dreaming of Sunshine Universe, Sorry kako's a boy for this fic, no beta we die like witchers, thats a horrible tag
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:28:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 4,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25814314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yuurei/pseuds/Yuurei
Summary: Kako is not the first child surprise to be given over to a Witcher but she may be the most surprising.
Comments: 50
Kudos: 196
Collections: Heliocentrism — a Dreaming of Sunshine recursive collection





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Shikako, born into the Witcher world, is a child of surprise for a Witcher. This changes things. 
> 
> This is a crossover that didn't need to happen but hey why not jump into the Witcher fandom with a longtime coming Dreaming cross?
> 
> (This chapter is basically just a large preface to set the scenes I wanted but I uh haven't actually gotten around to writing any of them. It's just this. 0810)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story has no plot. It has no outline. Half the chapters cut off in the middle of a scene. It's just random ideas floating around in he ether. 
> 
> Take whatever concepts you like and write your own DoS/Witcher cross. And maybe tell me so I can read it.

Shikako becomes aware slowly. She is warm and it's dark and crowded. It's quiet. This doesn't last. The first time this had happened she'd been in too much shock to register what was truly happening. Now in this new life, as this is surely what this is once again, she is privy to the feeling of knowing how it feels to be given birth to. It's not a set of feelings she's inclined to be happy about. 

She comes into the world screaming her displeasure. She figures given what just happened she's allowed a little trauma lee-way. She'll be a good baby later and not scream her new parents ears off after she lets out her frustration at being tiny and incapable and oh so very breakable once more. Right now she'll cry for her last life lost even if it was a long and in the end peaceful one. 

She'll give herself until her voice tires to grieve the people she knows are now lost to her. She knows from experience it'll hurt for a long time but what ever this new world might be she'll let her past make her strong not weak. She'll never let herself be weak again if she can be otherwise.

It takes Shikako an embarrassingly long few weeks to realise she is no longer a _she_ and feels that realisation is more than sufficient to excuse her crying fit. She's been a good baby up till now, her parents can take a day of crying. It's not even that it really, truly bothers her. It's a mite bit uncomfortable, like clothes which fit a little bit tight, but no more so than having an entirely new body to begin with anyway. It's simply something else she's lost along the way. He'll get used to it along with everything else. 

His parents he thinks are a bit cool with him. It doesn't really sink in at first. He's still mourning his last family so the fact that this one cares for him physically but is not very affectionate doesn't really register. He's not actually a baby to be coddled and cooed at and his parents seem busy with work each day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't actually have any plans for this. (I lied I had a bunch of plans for this I just never wrote them down. Or maybe I did but I don't know where. It was a month ago.) **I'm just posting it so ao3 doesn't delete the draft tomorrow and I don't have to save it somewhere else. I dont actually have anything else written for this verse atm that isnt bullet point ideas.**
> 
> Initially Kako was going to be Geralt's, pre-netflix series. But I started having thoughts... about perhaps her being given to a different Witcher. And then I couldn't decide who would be interesting to write with a young/baby/toddler Kako.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey so I've got 5 "chapters" of bits and pieces that are all half done and they're just sitting here so I'm gonna post them all. People seemed to like the idea of this cross so by all means take these little bits and build on them if you can. I would love to see a good crossover of these and apparently I'm not going to make it myself anytime soon.

Shortly after her realisation of gender comes a familiar burning itching sensation that makes her want to cry all the more. Her chakra system is growing once more And it's as painfully as uncomfortable as the first time it grew in. She's older now though and understands what's happening what worries her is that in the time she's been here she hasn't felt a drop of chakra from anyone. Her parents don't even have that single spark civilians do and it worries her to have hers grow while this world seems lacking. 

There's something else in the air certainly but it's not nature chakra and she hesitates to even prod it with the chakra she'll have access to soon enough. After all if nature chakra makes stone statues she doesn't want to know what unknown energy in an unknown world could do to their untrained child's body. Every body here seems to have a presence to it at least though. Her chakra sense may not be useful anymore but what ever this seeming life force is she'll learn to track it all the same. Sensory squad training should be simple enough to adapt as playing funny made up children games.

<


	3. Cats

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay this one's basically cliff notes.

Cat caravan

Taken when 3ish  
May I take my things?  
Thank you mama and papa for caring for me. Ok we can go.

Put on the back of a cart by claimer.  
Your an odd one. What's you're name little mite?

Her name. They hadn't even asked her parents her name. Well then. Maybe it'd stand out but a name is a name and if they want her's she'll give it. Because that means she can take it back. This one piece of her past she won't have to let go.

Shikako. My name is Shikako.


	4. Griffin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey so -- this is kinda skipping all the background all the growing up all the world building bits of stuff I had planned because well because it hopped into my head I couldn't not write it. I'm not sorry for writing it but there is literally no context for this so yah.

Shikako has just finished a contract and is returning to the town with a Griffin head for the coin. It surprises her then to see another Witcher head out of the tavern inn she's chosen to bed down in. She won't say she's never seen another Witcher but most of the other schools avoid the Cats as being too much, too wild to ever work with. It's a rare thing though and she's curious. After a lifetime of poking her ninja nose into things and a childhood of curious Cats she's not one to give up an opportunity like this. 

She slows her pace and observes the other man. The twin swords are the obvious bit as are the golden eyes. He's not wearing the heavy armour favoured by most of their kind though he's got a few pieces that wouldn't inhibit his movement here and there. He even has some cloths wrapped tightly around his forearms and it brings a bit of nostalgia to her heart and a happy quirk to her lips that this man won't understand. 

The Griffin medallion on his chest gives her pause though. She's kinda got a bloody Griffin head dangling in her grip and while she knows Griffin witchers kill griffins like any other witcher she doesnt want it taken as some kind of challenge. Some of the other Cats gave all Cats a weird and wild reputation. 

The other witcher has been observing her too and slows his own pace. It's late at least so while the tavern is full the road outside is empty except the two of them. She stops a fair distance back just in case he's in a foul mood over being beaten to the contract. Some Witchers can be grouchy like that and she understands no contracts mean no coin so she doesn't begrudge him that if he's upset.

He looks her up and down the same as she had done to him. He quirks his own lips at her odd boots and that's all right she's gotten used to the confused and incredulous looks having open toes gets her. They are damn comfortable in summer though so she puts up with it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And I never actually got around to writing the reveal where they realise it's each other. Whoops.
> 
> Hey look it's Sasuke! I didn't plan on any other Naruto cast when I got the crossover idea, it was supposed to be just Shikako. I was litterally just lazing around and suddenly I had a whole lotta ideas and scenes flashing around in my head that I had to get down. The Witcher world suddenly got turned on it's head and I have no idea where this will end up.
> 
> Like damn Sasuke way to ruin all my plans and plots by existing.
> 
> Oh. I guess I might wanna update the character tags now that I posted these. I knew I was forgetting something.
> 
> I guess this is going to be more like vaguely connected scenes in the same verse rather than an actual story like I had planned. It's probably better that way, I suck at multichapter story continuity.


	5. Viper

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And again with the no writing the reveal. There's a reason I said these were just bits of chapters.

There's something to be said for the irony of Naruto being a viper. Never had there been a person less suited to be a snake in the grass and it shows. His short swords are typical for a viper's training and he moves with a serpentine grace that shows when he moves through a field but in villages he's as clumsy and cheerful as he ever was in their childhood. He smiles, and not meanly, in the face of ever villager that calls him a monster and it's painful reminder that he has lived this life before. A pariah by other's choices before he was old enough to make the choice himself. 

He smiles widely and happily and ignores the vitriol spewed upon him. He helps those who spurn him though he always makes sure to take his coin even if it's not given. A ninja knows a contract fulfilled is one that must be paid for and perhaps he's a bit more jaded now. He's grown up alone this time and while he's free on the road of his fellow snakes scorn at his soft heart there's still no friend's smiles to temper the bitterness that hides inside him.


	6. Wolf

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A laid back wolf, a calm logical cat, a mercenary blunt griffin, a kind cheerful viper.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... the team are all using henge here and for nostalgia's sake they picked their old forms. As luck would have it this is when they run into sensei.

Kakashi is lonely. After enough years here it's easy to admit. There's contracts and a school instead of missions and a village. There's magic and signs instead of chakra and jutsu. He considered when he was young whether he should just use his burgeoning chakra to escape Kaer Morhen, his skills uniquely suited to knowing how to escape trackers, and make his own way in the world. He realised before he could finish planning that he had no where to go that would be better. 

Three in ten they said would survive and it was on chance not skill that they lived. For years Kakashi wished he had been one of seven instead of three. Now on the Path he wishes it again. He won't hasten his own demise though. He's lived this life before. Alone but for his memories of teammates long gone. If this is his life then he'll live it and hopefully when this life is done he'll find his team in the next.

\---

The laughter catches his ear. It's not the first time he's seen or heard or smelled hints that remind him of the past. This laugh though, this boisterous loud cheerful laugh, is so similar in every aspect that instead of turning away to spare his heart from seeing the differences as he usually does he finds his feet turning toward the sound to catch just a glimpse of what he lost.

There. Bright golden hair bobbing along in the crowd heading his way that makes the nostalgia worse. The young man breaks through the crowd and Kakashi's breath hitches. Oh. Maybe he has gone mad from loss. 

Out of the crowd steps not one but all three of his students chatting cheerfully with one another. They're young. Younger than he'd last saw them. Late teens rather than the adults they had become and isn't that a kick in the teeth that they look so happy together when he's on the outside looking in. They're passing him by now and he flares his chakra from where it's hidden in a moment of panic. They won't know him but he can't help that call for aid.

Except. As one they spin to meet his eyes and oh the looks they give him. He knows in that moment they are as much themselves as he is under the henge he holds but it doesn't matter. They're here and finally he's not alone. 

Shikako steps up to him and he drinks in her visage. Soft brown eyes framed with short bangs and a jounin's jacket vest around her shoulders. She looks up at him and meets his eyes and asks softly, "What's rule one?"

Kakashi croaks out, "No dieing." 

Shikako wraps her arms around him gently, "Hmm, you're late, sensei. I suppose we'll forgive you this time."

~~~

Kakashi eventually drags his pups back to Kaer Morhen. Chaos ensues.

Sparring matches are everything goes. Fire everywhere. Explosions everywhere. Wire and steel and silver and laughter echoes as they play like cubs. Very deadly cubs.

No one will spar with them anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the only one of these 5 "chapters" that I wrote today all the others have been kicking around since like a month ago. 
> 
> I actually really liked this one. This scene is like more than half the reason team seven ended up in this verse. I just really wanted a lonely wolf getting his pack back.


	7. Impulse addition - winter with wolves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is me just typing to see what comes about. Literally. I have no plans I'm just tired of podficcing atm so I'm doing a bit of random typing. This random little crossover of half done ideas has more kudos and bookmarks and subscriptions than any other thing I've put on a03 so congratulations you're being rewarded with more random exposition.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bet you weren't expecting This! *hikes skirt to show abandoned-story chapter*
> 
> Sasuke pov chapter. Sorta. Ish.  
> 1100 words of random background stuff apparently how did this get so long...

Sasuke is bored. Kaer Morhen is nothing like Kaer Seren and he's glad for the change but the startled looks he faces when he turns corners and no one had heard him coming are beginning to become an annoyance rather than an amusement. 

Sure Wolves are inclined to better hearing than his fellow Griffins but honestly nothing in this world seems to stand up to regular jounin stealth when it's not expected. They should be glad he's not just ghosting around at anbu level. His fellow Griffins have long since become used to him popping up all over the place with no warning and while they still startle they recover much quicker than these Wolves, with much less bristling and baring of teeth. It's beginning to become ridiculous. 

It's winter though and, while he would often winter away from his own school to avoid being snowed in with the rest of the Griffins, team seven had decided camping rough with the four of them required more work than they were inclined to. Each of them had a few bolt holes trapped to hell and placed through the wilderness but a bolt hole for one is not a comfortable winter for four and they aren't quite ready to be separated for some months when they're still getting used to having found one another again. So Kaer Morhen it was after some debate.

They could have gone to Kaer Seren. Of all the schools the Griffins believe themselves the most noble like and as such while wary wouldn't likely have turned them away with one of their own asking for winter sanctuary, even one as odd as Sasuke. As noble as they see themselves though they would have looked down upon his companions despite their seeming generosity. Naruto at least has had enough of that for two lifetimes and they vetoed that idea despite Naruto himself claiming it would be fine. 

The could have tried the Vipers of course. They all certainly fit in with the more mercenary lifestyle of a mission is a mission no matter if the target is human, monster, item or information. Winter is supposed to be for relaxing though and Naruto's school is a bit more backstabbing happy than they all are comfortable with right now. Even Naruto has grown a bit stab happy with the two short blades he's come to wield, though he only rubs the back of his neck sheepishly when Shikako pointed it out to him. Neither Sasuke or Kakashi was going to point of the hypocrisy of her pointing that out though.

The Cats are unfortunately right out. Shikako has the benefit of a lifetime of emotional control in the face of mild altering substances. The medical jutsu she's repurposed to give herself an edge in smoothing out the chemical imbalances brought on by the cats trials are unfortunately not something she can spread to her school's students. They're all a little wild in the way and unstable jinchuuriki could be, all power and lower impulse control, and no amount of sleepy winter calm makes them want to deal with nosy Cats. 

Which leaves the Wolves and Kaer Morhen. There's not really a good reason to choose Kaer Morhen. The other Wolves won't exactly welcome them. The keep itself gets more snowed in than Kaer Seren or Gorther Gvaed. Kakashi himself doesn't even spend many winters there, a lone wolf most often, so him asking for them to be able to stay won't even earn them any favor. If anything the other Wolves will likely be curious as to just who exactly has captured their loner's regard. After weighing their choices though it seems the best of a bad lot. Better suspicious curiosity than wild instability, noble snobbery or outright threats.

In true Kakashi fashion he doesn't even bother to ask the school's head whether they can winter there. He simply takes them up the trail just before the winter storm make it impossible for any but those ninja trained to leave. If they're met with hostility he wants a safe out for his cubs but the appearance of not giving the school a choice as to their presence for winter works in his favour. They look a little dumbfounded as he presents his cubs, a Cat, Griffin and Viper, but allow them to stay with little true protest given the seemingly impassable storm outside their gates.

Now that they've been here for a month or so though the novelty is wearing off. Shikako has made friends with the more alchemically inclined of the wolves and when she's not showing them how to get more bang for their bombs she's borrowing (temporarily stealing) books out of the mage quarters in an effort to reverse engineer the trials. She'd already copied what she could of the Cat's trials before she's finished their schooling but this opportunity means in the following years they probably will have to rotate through the remaining schools to complete her collection. He's not looking forward to the Viper winter but having Shikako try to talk her way into the remaining schools that none of them are part of should be entertaining at least. 

Naruto in true Naruto fashion is making friends left, right and center. The Wolves may have started standoffish but in the face of Naruto's cheerful curiosity on the sparring field and absolute willingness to teach dual wielding to anyone who wants to know they've since warmed up to him like the younger brother they never knew they had. It's almost ridiculous how rough and tumble the Wolves have become around him. Like a keep full of adult Kibas all ready to pounce and play with a new puppy.

Kakashi is nominally at home for the winter and should be relaxed and happy. In reality he's been _home_ ever since he found them in that town, or they found him or however that goes. He's not that much older than them, as Witcher ageing goes they're practically the same, but he is older and as such spent time on the Path alone. Long enough to have thought his very long Witcher life was going to be empty of team and family. He's taken to hovering over all of them in equal turns. On the path they were all within reach and he'd taken advantage to brush against an arm or pat a shoulder or ruffle some hair as he passed by. Now he's had to have them out of his sight as they follow their interests and it's telling that's he's circling between them for just how lonely he's been.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I give up. I hate typing on my phone. I miss my desktop so much...
> 
> Ahahaha... oops😅I didn't actually get around to what was keeping Sasuke occupied in Kaer Morhen. I'm honestly not sure what he's doing😂😂😂


	8. Chapter 7 continued

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...oops my hand slipped. Direct continuation of last chapter😂 I still don't know what _I'm_ doing, have another thousand words.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lol thanks for the kudos and comments they make all my days so much better😙
> 
> Ok this is still on hiatus/abandoned/whatever because I have no plans. One of you lovely people go forth and spawn a bunch of plot bunnies to the usual DoS recursive writers and give them ideas. Please.

Sasuke's actually the one Sensei is following right now. He's not doing anything so parental as walking on Sasuke's heels but he's no more than 10 meters back in an adjacent corridor meandering along at the same pace Sasuke is keeping. If Sasuke were to say shunshin over to that hallway Sensei would no doubt have his nose in a book and seem to anyone else to be wandering aimlessly. Sasuke knows better. He's been purposefully steering Kakashi-sensei into his fellow wolves for the last thirty minutes and enjoying the startled not-quite-chakra fluctuations in the groups each time it happens. He's waiting for Sensei to get bored of the game and appear in his hallway to spend time with him properly.

They've all long since decided they don't care how anyone else sees them. They're team seven First, Witcher and shinobi second. That means spending time actually being a team and once Sensei decides he's had enough of pretending he's not hovering they'll go find Shikako and Naruto for some team training. 

Some things have carried over from their previous life, like having chakra when the rest of the population of this place doesn't and that let's them use jutsu, but the general lack has thrown off a lot of their sensing techniques, but some things haven't come with them. None of them have summons anymore and there's no hint of such a thing even existing here so some of their techniques have had to be reworked. On the other hand they've all got permanently enhanced senses now and he's apologized to Kiba in his head more than once for mocking him over gagging at strong smells.

Another group collides with Sensei in the other hallway as they turn a corner and a few moments later Kakashi is behind him as if he's always been walking at Sasuke's heels. He's still got his nose in a book and it's still looks just as odd to glance back and not find it brightly orange and eye-catching. Sensei had lamented frequently on the road here over the lack of good reading material in this world. Sasuke isn't going to let on that between Shikako, Naruto and himself they're working on transcribing a rough copy of one of the Icha Icha books for his next birthday. They'd all been roped into reading them at one point and though it's been years they're doing their best to dredge up all the flowery prose they'd tried once to sincerely forget.

With Sensei at his heels he turns toward Kako's signature. She'll be the harder to pull away from her tasks. Her brain still goes a Nara-mile a minute and it's as easy for her to get lost now as it ever was.

Naruto will be both easier and harder. He'll come easy enough but unless they say otherwise they'll be liable to have a handful of Naruto's wolves following at their heels too. Some days they let them stay as an audience and Shikako has joked more than once about their chunin exams and being on display. 

Most of the time they simple slip away and those that can't follow them get left behind. Sasuke has maybe, sort of been dropping hints on stealth and tracking humans. Every Witcher is familiar with tracking monsters but humans are a different matter. Nothing as simple as footsteps will help in a keep made of stone but scents still work and the strange not-chakra magic the Witchers use for signs can be as individual as a chakra sign if one can learn to note the differences. Though the wolves haven't yet figured out he's purposefully spreading his magic behind him like a trail and then hiding it away like his chakra to make false trails. It's a less than useful skill on the average human but tracking fellow witchers aside plenty of monsters have magic too.

~~~

Before they can reach Shikako there's a boom of a blast that actually makes the hall's stone floor rumble beneath their feet and there are a few panicked exclamations from others in the halls. With a sigh Kakashi and he just keep ambling along though; Kako's chakra hasn't wavered which means the blast was a planned one and hopefully there's no actual structural damage done. A handful of Witchers race past them and in passing give them varied dirty and exasperated glares. They all know by now explosions mean the crazy cat is playing with their formulas and by association they've all been tarred with the same crazy brush.

Sensei shares a look with him and they sigh as one but shunshin towards whatever mess Shikako has made this time. Luckily she hasn't done it actually inside the main building but out in one of the varied courtyards, unluckily said courtyard looks more like an empty bowl now than the flat plane it used to be. The shape of it is somewhat odd. Most blasts even of that magnitude would have been largely directed upward into the air as the path of least resistance but the few trees bordering the area are far more intact than would be normal for such a large blast. The ground itself seems almost blown upward and outward though as if the charge was buried. Maybe Kako has been making land mines again for some reason. 

She's standing there at the edges of the hole though examining something about the blast so they join her there. Her wolves, as much as Kako says she doesn't have wolves they still spend a fair bit of time with her, are standing a good bit back likely placed out of range by Shikako before her test began. They have the stunned whitefaced look of those just realising how very deadly Kako is. It's a look he's always enjoyed seeing but that has often made Kako go red in the face with embarrassment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Plot? What's a plot? I mean, if you're saying this is a piece of land filled with random greenery and animals you might be right. (Also dialogue? People talking? That's a thing???)
> 
> The things one can come up with when they're just going sentence by sentence. I seriously have no idea what Kako has done now. I mean maybe she made a pressure land mine and threw a rock? Maybe she buried a charge and wick? Maybe she made a timing device? I'm not sure why her wolves are so pale but I'm sure it was for a good reason???


	9. Eh maybe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mwahaha

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yo! Not connected to last couple chapters at all.  
> 600ish words of meh  
> Want to know what the hell Kako was doing with explosives last chapter? _So do I._
> 
> I think this is set before Kako met up with Sasuke.  
> Once again, if you're looking for like plot or something like it you're in the wrong place. 
> 
> Don't expect any more snippets I've run out of random stuff for the moment.
> 
> ~~~
> 
> So. I being the absolute idiot I am just finished recording a two and a half hour (well, slightly under) file of a star wars podfic and am regretting my life so severely right now. My lips are dry as the desert and my tongue feels like lead has coated it's entirety. Ugh and it's still needs to be edited. How tedious. If I ever even mention the idea that I'm considering podding 20k in one day, one file, again someone take my bow and put an arrow in me because I've lost my gods damned mind.

Kako has decided she hates the path. Not this path in particular, _the Path_ emphasis and capital included. Becoming a shinobi was a shift in world view that took some adjusting to. It was expected and lauded as the career to choose to become useful to your village. Death, murder and mayhem inherent in it and that took a measure of indoctrinated desensitization to swallow. This life is both more and less the same. 

Becoming a Witcher, and wow was it an eye opener to find that powers existed in this world outside her powerless backwater village, was honestly the easiest way forward to have a way to disguise her own budding abilities. Well maybe becoming a mage would have worked out better but as far as she can tell becoming a mage, or sorceress, requires giving loyalty to your school and the rumors around those are somehow worse than that of Witchers even if the outcome is far more desirable. 

Mages and sorceresses, even hedgewitches as the equivalent of medicine women, are looked upon as having desirable power and ability and good standing in society if perhaps looked up on with some measure of reverence and fear. Witchers? Oh they have power and standing in society and none of it good.

It stands to reason really that only kids become Witchers because given what adults know, or think they know, of Witchers they never would volunteer for such a lifestyle, even if they could survive the mutagens. Its rough and scarring with days and weeks of deprivation on top of civilians spitting on you for doing your best to keep them safe. The trainers didn't sugarcoat any of it and Kako is grateful because that means information over childish fantasy. 

A lack of information gets people killed.

Still, expectations being a low as they were Kako still isn't liking the Path much. Freedom from the trainers is nice though and even though the trainers liked Shikako for her ruthless gift for combat they still weren't pleasant to deal with. That freedom alone is worth the fact that the village she just left attempted to stiff her of half her payment with a bag full of rocks. Attempted only, because Shikako has full plans on simply returning after dark and claiming her money anyway. Let them wonder at how the money was taken from their bedside and how that must have meant her sword could have been at their throats while they slept. Perhaps the next Witcher to pass through will benefit from their wariness.

~~~

Ok maybe she isn't hating the Path too much. The whole Witcher thing is pretty crap what with the way villagers seem to think she eats children or some such with the way they scurry out of her path, but actually hunting down monsters for coin? That part is actually pretty cool. It reminds her of old games with goblins and trolls and dragons and mages and hunters and clerics and if she occasionally pretends to roll a die before engaging a slow enemy well there's no one around to call her out on her geeky fun. 

Most of them don't hold a candle to chakra enhanced Witcher speed so she isn't reliant on potions with time limits like the rest of her kind. Its almost too easy to become lax in her hunts until she runs into a contract that hunts her back and almost takes her life with its surprise. After that well Shika's voice in her head saying troublesome doesn't really cover it. 

It's still pretty interesting testing the limits of stealth, speed and strength against things with the intelligence of humans but the morals of monsters too. No sticky mess of guilt at killing them when they make the choice to do things like eat children instead of animals simply because it's easier hunting and tender prey. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...yep I got nothing. 
> 
> Guess I'm gonna save writing snippets of this for rainy days when I want some positivity because you guys are usually pretty nice (even when I give you incoherent scribbles😅) and I sure as shit don't get much for anything else I post. 🤔 At some point I should post the other DoS work I've got hidden away in my notebooks. That one at least has a marginal plot and storyline. Eh maybe someday.


End file.
